


The Worst Associations

by Leamas



Category: Declare - Tim Powers
Genre: 1948 timeline, M/M, noncon handjobs, spies having issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-18 02:04:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10607031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leamas/pseuds/Leamas
Summary: 1948On their return from Mount Ararat, Philby stops in Dogubayezit to let Hale see Elena. She isn't there, of course, but Philby isn't satisfied with that.





	

Sitting beside Philby, Hale looked up and out the window of the jeep. It was the most movement Hale had made since silently climbing into the car at the foot of Ararat.

“Go on. Isn’t there s-s-someone w-waiting for you?” he asked. “Don’t you w-want to see her?”

Hale looked away from where the front of the Ararat Hotel sleepily stood across the street from where they sat in the car. “What about last night?”

“What about last night, indeed!”

Elena wasn’t his usual type, but when he saw her in the dim of her own room he’d been caught by how white her hair was, and the intensity in her eyes when she sat glaring at him from behind the business end of the gun she held to her forehead. And when he had her beneath him, reaching up for him and holding herself against him, he’d loved her for reminding him of the boundaries of his own body.

Hale was looking at Philby. He looked tired, but not lifeless. “We didn’t finish.”

“No,” Philby agreed.

Hale turned back around to the Ararat Hotel. His hand landed on the inside handle of the car door and he leaned forward to look at it.

“You don’t have to,” Philby said. “F-for all you know, sh-she isn’t th-there anymore. Or maybe sh-she never made it b-back, after l-l-last n-n-night.”

_Or maybe she shot herself._

Hale asked, “Why wouldn’t she?”

“Th-think about it. A lone woman, trying to get by through the storm. And I t-t-told you, the roads back would have been impossible by car, n-n-never mind a ho-ho- _horse_.”

Hale looked back to the hotel again. “So last night was purely academic,” he said, repeating Philby’s own words back to him. Philby suspected he wasn’t supposed to hear, given how gently Hale said them, but then thought about who he was talking to: he couldn’t imagine Hale using words that weren’t intended to be heard.

“ _Purely academic_ ,” Philby snapped. “Yes, if you simply _must_ put it that way – f-fine. But t-tell me, do you w-w-want to see your woman or should we continue?”

“How will I get back?”

“I’ll wait.”

Philby wondered if he’d contest the offer. Hale didn’t. He simply nodded, pushed open the door of the car and walked out into the street. Philby killed the engine and watched as he crossed to the hotel, taking note of the points where Hale stopped to look back at him. The streets were silent and still after the storm the previous night; all noise from the city sounded distant.

Between Hale’s slow pace, the mud caking his knees and the dirt smeared across his cheeks, and the tired look in his eyes, Philby wondered if he would even be allowed in, or if he’d be turned away for fear that he was ill, or drunk. He waited a moment to allow Hale the chance to ask about Elena’s room – or to be turned away, if that was what was to come of all this – and then followed him inside.

The clerk recognised Philby from the night before and nodded politely at him. Philby walked through the hallway to the stairs, then navigated his way through the maze of hallways until he reached the room of the elegant Ceniza-Bendiga.

Hale stood in the doorway to Elena’s room, and Philby watched the back of his head as he turned and surveyed it. Briefly Philby wondered if Elena wasn’t dead, having taken his advice, and if that was why Hale stood so still; he wasn’t the type of man Philby ascribed profound emotional reactions to, not past crying like he clearly had been the night before, as evidenced by his face this morning when Philby found him. But then Philby remembered how dead bodies smelled; even from this distance Philby would have smelled the revolting, nauseating waves pouring out from the room if that had been the case.

He walked up behind Hale, making it no more than a few steps before Hale heard, and turned to look at him. Philby felt the monstrous weight of recognition as Hale stared at him as though seeing Philby for the first time; Philby felt lightheaded, detached from his body like he was looking at himself and seeing a tired, desolate man standing where he was neither permitted, nor wanted.

The moment passed. Philby looked at Hale and saw him as himself, with the familiar impenetrable expression that felt uneasy for its familiarity: like someone looking through the window from a well-lit room into the dark and seeing a face looking back at him. It stole everything it landed on and offered nothing back. Philby thought of Hale as an observer of his own participation, never touching his own life but not having the decency to walk away what didn’t concern him, either.

Philby pushed past Hale and let himself into the same hotel room where he spent the previous night. Sheets thrown about and the complimentary cups were left untouched. Philby lifted one up and peered through it, then set it down again and turned back to Hale. He still looked exhausted.

“Did she m-m-make it back, or d-did she l-leave again this morning, ear-ear-early?”

Hale wasn’t answering. He didn’t seem to like to be dragged into the spotlight and asked to account for the parts of his life he had only ever witnessed. He looked lost; it was appalling. For a moment Philby was revolted by how pathetic he looked.

And yet still, Hale remained unreachable.

And what could Philby say? What more could he have done last night? He wanted to know. This song and dance about Elena – who was beautiful; who touched him and brought him home to his body – answered none of his questions from the night before, and accounted for none of his failures. He had expected some payoff from bringing Hale here and ripping open a wound in the shape of Elena, but there was nothing; even his victory over Hale the night before felt hollow, and unsatisfactory.

“We need to go back.” His voice lifted at the end, perhaps in askance; what answer was _he_ looking for?

“Y-you don’t want to keep l-l-looking for her?” Philby pressed. “Y-y-your young m-mistress? Wh-what a j-j-gentleman you are.”

Hale’s face clouded, briefly, and held the insult: the first tug at his façade.

“W-w-what would you say if you f-found her?” Philby asked. “What would she want with you, f-f-for that matter? Come now, b-boy, don’t b-b-be _shy_ ; you m-must have thought _extensively_ about this, if you want her like you do.”

Hale’s expression cleared, but Philby saw the effort it took on Hale’s body; he could feel it in his own, the same distant rage.

“D-do you want her? Or d-d-do you thinnnk you _love_ her?” He crossed the room, observing his hand as he raised it and touched the side of the door, then closed it behind him. He didn’t look away from Hale, noting how he took a step nearer to the door, but he was too late to stop Philby from closing it. “Or was she just,” Philby heard himself ask as his hand found Hale’s collar, and pushed him away from him while not letting go, “was she j-j-just something to chase after that you already know you’ll n-never _get_?”

Hale grabbed Philby’s wrist and buried his thumb into the tendon, weakening Philby’s hold on his shoulder. Philby grabbed the front of his shirt with his other hand and slammed his back against the door. There was a struggle but it didn’t last long; Hale took hold of Philby’s neck with his nails and didn’t let go, but did nothing more than that. For a brief moment Philby was certain that Hale was stronger than him, but chose not to act.

Philby leaned his weight against Hale’s chest with his forearm, and with his other hand reached down the front of his pants.

Hale tensed at the same time as his other hand reached for Philby’s wrist; Philby squeezed Hale’s cock, and took a moment to appreciate the pained gasp Hale tried to hold back.

And then Hale watched him, motionless. Gradually he eased his hold away from Philby’s wrist and neck; his skin stung where Hale had held him.

He should let go: walk away, drive Hale back to Kars and let the imminent silence of the journey serve as an indication for how they should continue forward.

But Hale again looked at him as though watching from a distance, as untouchably foreign as he had ever been. And Philby found himself hating Hale for not breaking under him. For not giving himself and his secrets away as easily as Elena had the night before; for not yielding, and for remaining outside of Philby’s touch.

He swiped his thumb over the head of Hale’s cock, and watched as he shivered.

 _And so I will have you both_.

His fingers wrapped around Hale’s cock but didn’t squeeze; this time he let the pressure gradually increase, running his thumb along the length of it with his dry, cracked fingers. He moved his thumb up to the top and felt Hale’s cock grow stiff. He watched as Hale’s shoulders tensed, and as he turned his head away from him.

Philby held tighter. His hand moved to the top of Hale’s cock and he squeezed, leaning more of his weight against Hale to hold him in place. He felt Hale tremble.

“W-would you even n-know what to do with a woman?” Philby asked, after an especially rough stroke that made Hale gasp.

He glared at Philby before turning his head slightly to the right, looking over his shoulder. His discomfort was palpable, as was the exhaustion. Philby imagined finishing with Hale and leaving him collapsed on the floor, but found he couldn’t imagine Hale collapsing anywhere. He’d pulled himself out of the bomb shelter that morning, and down the mountain the night before, weakly stumbling along despite all strength seeming to have left him. He’d follow Philby outside and take a seat in the bloody jeep again, and they’d finish the drive in silence. How did he continue moving?

Philby gave himself another moment to hate Hale for his composure; he yanked his hand down Hale’s cock and thumbed the top of it, varying the pressure of his hand and letting the cracks on his palm slide against his delicate skin. Hale was uncomfortably warm in Philby’s hand, and his stifled breathing and unnaturally warm body only added to the discomfort. Philby wanted to grab Hale and twist the flesh under his hand, but couldn’t bring himself to do it; he gave several more rough, firm strokes and finished him off, watching as Hale pinched his eyes shut to stop himself from showing any of that.

When his breathing slowed, Philby pulled his hand out; he debated wiping his hand on Hale’s trousers, but instead crossed the room and wiped his hand on the sheets of the bed where he’d been with Elena the previous night.

It felt right, somehow, to know he’d taken them both, even if he didn’t manage to quite touch him. The whole experience felt like touching himself, skin against skin that never reached deeper into himself, despite his own muscles working from inside of him making his hands move.

When he looked back to Hale he’d adjusted himself again; he looked away from Philby, and Philby recognised the look as shame at having been caught, rather than at what happened.

“If there’s n-nothing else to s-s-see, we should go,” Philby said.

Hale nodded, and took another moment to check that he’d adjusted himself. He reached for the door and waited for Philby to follow him, then closed the door behind them.

Philby touched his neck where Hale’s nails marked him; his hand came away with blood.


End file.
